(Resource News International) — The Canadian Wheat Board has reported its largest wheat export program in nine years during 2008-09 and its second-highest grain revenues ever for Prairie farmers.
Large grain production in 2008-09 and favourable market conditions allowed the CWB to increase sales, executives said in their annual crop year-end news conference Thursday in Winnipeg.
However, poor weather conditions across Western Canada during the 2009 growing season will likely mean a reduction in exports for 2009-10, the CWB said.
The CWB exported about 18.5 million tonnes of wheat, durum and barley during the 2008-09 crop year, CWB CEO Ian White said during the news conference. That represents a one million-tonne increase from 2007-08 and was the highest volume since 1999-2000.
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Of the total exports, the CWB exported 13.2 million tonnes of wheat, 3.6 million tonnes of durum, 1.5 million tonnes of malting barley and 185,000 tonnes of feed barley.
A number of the major customers for Canadian wheat in 2008-09 were different from past years, said White, pointing to Iran and Saudi Arabia as two countries to which Canada increased export sales during the year.
Aside from the domestic market, Iran was the largest customer for Canadian wheat during the 2008-09 crop year, purchasing 1.8 million tonnes, White said.
The CWB’s net revenue, returned directly to farmers, was estimated at more than $6 billion, which would be second only to the $7.2 billion recorded in 2007-08, he said. However, he added, high crop input costs limited the total profits seen by producers.
CWB board chairman Larry Hill cautioned that poor weather across the Prairies continues to create concern for the 2009 crop.
“Looking ahead, it is now quite certain that drought and cold weather will take a toll,” said Hill, who farms near Swift Current in southwestern Saskatchewan. Weather conditions will need to co-operate over the remainder of the growing season in order to get the crops in.
Lowered expectations
The CWB released its second official Prairiewide crop production estimates for 2009, lowering its all-wheat projections by 600,000 tonnes from June to 20.2 million tonnes, which compares with 25.5 million in 2008-09. Durum production was now estimated at 4.2 million tonnes, down 200,000 tonnes from the June estimate and below the 5.5 million grown the previous year. Barley production was down 300,000 tonnes from the June estimate, to 8.6 million. Western Canadian farmers grew 11.2 million tonnes of barley in 2008-09.
The lower production numbers will likely result in lower exports as well, with the CWB’s early expectations for the 2009-10 crop forecasting total exports of 15.5 million tonnes, from 18.5 million in 2008-09, according to CWB data.
White said cool temperatures for most of the growing season have meant that the 2009-10 crop continues to be late and continues to struggle.
Issues for farmers now will be what happens over the remainder of the growing season, and when the first frost hits, he said.
Bruce Burnett, director of the CWB’s weather and crop surveillance department, said yields will generally be below normal across the Prairies.
While it’s still early and there are many factors to consider ahead of the harvest, he also estimated more of the wheat crop will grade as feed than normal.
Typically eight to 10 per cent of the spring wheat crop is downgraded to feed, but that number could be as much as five per cent higher this year, Burnett said.
